Richard Holden (British politician)

Following the death of his North West Durham constituent, Andrew Rowlands, Holden started a campaign with the Rowlands family to prevent people without driving licences from buying vehicles.[20][21] Holden secured and spoke in a debate in Parliament on the issues in January 2022, at which the parents of Andrew Rowlands were present, and has pledged to keep working with Government until the law is changed to prevent further tragic deaths in such circumstances.[22]

In March 2021, Holden led a group of 80 Conservative MPs in writing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking him to introduce a new lower duty for beer sold on draught in pubs.[23] He continued his campaign alongside fellow Conservative MP Mike Wood with meetings with Treasury Ministers and in October 2021 gathered over 100 Conservative MPs to push the issues ahead of the 2021 Budget.[24][25] At the 2021 Budget the Government announced a new Draught Beer Duty rate for pubs and clubs 5 per cent lower than standard beer duty, cutting the tax on beer and cider sold in pubs by £100 million a year.[26][27] The Chancellor credited both Holden and Wood for campaigning on the issue in his Budget Speech.[28][29]

In 2020 Holden heard about the practices of so-called virginity testing and hymenoplasty in a report on BBC Radio 1, and began looking at ways the law could be changed to ban them.[30][31] He then introduced a Private Member's Bill to ban the practices, but this fell at the end of the 2019-21 Parliamentary Session.[32] Holden tabled two new clauses to the Health and Social Care Bill in the 2021-22 Parliamentary Session seeking to outlaw both so called 'virginity testing' and hymenoplasty.[33][34][35] He received support for these amendments from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, as well as charities campaigning to ban the practices and MPs from all parties.[36]

Holden tabled the first amendments to the Health and Care Bill 2021 on 16 July 2021, to ensure that both practices were banned, receiving cross-party support for the changes.[37] However, the Government's Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy had already been developing guidelines for many months on this issue. This was published in July 2021,[38] led by Home Secretary Priti Patel and Independent Advisor, Nimco Ali. It outlined the government's plans for the banning of virginity testing and also for setting up an expert group on banning hymenoplasty. In January 2022, the government confirmed that both of these abuses would indeed be banned.[39]

Holden led a campaign to reverse the increase in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) paid on new motorhomes.[40] Erwin Hymer (formerly Elddis) based in Consett in Holden's constituency is a major manufacturer of motorhomes.[41] The tax had been increased in September 2019 in response to EU regulation 2018/1832.[42][43] In the March 2020 budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced that the VED increase would be reversed, a tax cut worth £25 million a year to consumers and the industry.[44][45]

Holden took on Cheryl Gillan's Private Member's Bill to extend the number of illegal drugs that could be tested for in prisons to include synthetic cannabinoids and other so called 'designer drugs' when Dame Cheryl was diagnosed with terminal cancer.[46] The Bill was passed in March 2021.[47][48]